1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of authenticating and charging a client using a web infoshop service system, wherein the web infoshop service system authenticates and charges a client in place of a content provider when the client uses a charged information service of the content provider.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 illustrates a configuration of a content providing service network in a conventional system. A client computer 101 connects to a charged content provider 105 through a public switched telephone network 102 and a telephone matching equipment 103. The telephone matching equipment 103 has only a function of converting a telephone network protocol into an internet protocol and has been disclosed in a paper appearing in a collection of papers of a fall general scientific meeting held by Korea Communication Academy on November in 1996 for Design of Open Internet Connection Sub-System and Implementation Thereof.
The client computer 104 is connected to the charged content provider 105 through the internet 106. In such content providing service network of the conventional system, management and responsibility for the authentication is in the client computers 101 and 104 and the charged content provider 105, and management for charging is directly processed by the content provider 105. There is no problem in this conventional system if the number of the charged content providers is small, but the charged content providers are in tend of increase. A basic authentication method provided by a hypertext transfer protocol is a representative authentication method generally used in present, and new methods enhancing security function have been developed and applied.
In the conventional system, since the charged content provider 105 takes charge of the authentication and charging with respect to a web information providing service, clients or users must obtain separate authentication values for different content providers to use the contents provided different charged content providers 105.
Additionally, when a client uses a charged content provider 105, the client must enter a unique authentication value (a user identification and a password) determined by the client and the charged content provider 105. The client must maintain and manage different authentication types and their values to use the information of the different charged content providers, while the charged content provider 105 must separately manage authentication values for different clients and conduct tasks such as calculation of an amount of charge for each client from the amount used, issue of bills, and receipt of charges. Therefore, there is a problem in that the charged content providers are annoyed to perform the management of the authentication and charging besides provision of information which is a basic task of the content provider.